Pilate's Wife: The Gospel According to the Eyewitness

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LIX

Day before the Ides of Aprilis. Eleventh hour of the day. [Thursday, April 12, c. 5:00 p.m.]

I bathed just after midday. I had not bathed since I began this life.

I went to my cupboard to get my combs for Parthenope, the girl Pilate has sent. It is strange how I am already accustomed to her. Fate prepares us, if we listen. Yet I was not prepared for what I saw when I unlocked the cupboard.

I saw the miniature portrait at once. I drew away as though I had found a viper on the shelf.

"Lady?" Parthenope said.

"Wait for me in the hall," I told her.

Florentina had put the painting next to my jewelry box. Evidently she long ago pieced it together. She has kept it and protected it in all these houses for all these years. Most recently she has kept it in a jar in the planter on the pavilion.

Even the cracks on the lacquered surface did not diminish the illusion of life. The painter has placed light in her eyes. Her teeth glimpsed between her parted lips, as though she had just taken breath. Combs draw back her black hair. She is younger than I am now.

I cannot remove that portrait, or even touch it. I fear that I will throw it down again.

Instead I fell onto my couch and wept for her. The acid tears of our shared remorse. She could do nothing to save her child. Her children. As I could do nothing to save my only child. That is her only bequest to me: The curse the stars have passed from mother to child.

Pilate is having a banquet here. I can hear the music below.

Roman portraits of this period were painted with a standard of realism that would not be reached again until the Renaissance. These luminous, startlingly detailed images were common in upper-class households.

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